trct_63

Chapter 63: Eavesdropping

In the dozen or so seconds Song Yu'er hesitated, Ji Qingzhou, seeing how hard she found it to speak, guessed that she must have taken a liking to the outfit he'd designed for Fang Biru, and wanted one just like it, too embarrassed to say so.

He'd even already started designing a similar outfit in his head, who would have thought that when the girl finally spoke, she wanted to become his student!

Ji Qingzhou instinctively glanced at Song Youling, and seeing that fellow was thoroughly absorbed in his card game, he had no choice but to look at the girl before him and ask, "Shouldn't you still be in school? Why come and be my student?"

"I've already graduated from the girls' school, just recently," Song Yu'er hurried to explain. "You remember when we first met, you asked if I wanted to learn tailoring, and I said I was still thinking it over? At the time I'd just attended my graduation ceremony, and was deciding whether to go study at a girls' high school in Nanjing, or do what I really wanted to do."

Since she'd already opened her mouth, Song Yu'er no longer felt embarrassed, and only hoped to become his student smoothly.

She said earnestly, "When it comes to studying, I really don't have much talent, and I can't settle down to it, but I love researching clothing, and I love tailoring. I can ride a rickshaw, I can embroider, and I'm not bad with my hands either. You could have me work alongside you first, observe me for a while, and then decide whether to take me on as a student..."

Ji Qingzhou furrowed his brow, at a loss for what to do with this girl.

In his view, if one could attend high school, one naturally should; if she truly loved making clothes, it would be fine to take it up a few years later.

"What does your family think?" he asked tactfully.

"My father said that whether I want to keep studying or learn to make clothes, he'll go along with my wishes, and my brother has always supported me."

Though Song Yu'er was shy in front of strangers, she spoke fluently enough. "Besides, I'm already sixteen, old enough to be responsible for my own decisions."

Only sixteen... Ji Qingzhou clicked his tongue softly.

Even though he did need an extra pair of hands, given how complicated and heavy his workload was, even if the girl was willing to work for him of her own accord, he felt he'd be exploiting a minor.

Just as he was wondering how to respond, Song Youling, having finished a round of cards, finally noticed what was going on over here.

Not just him. Luo Mingxuan and the others turned their gazes over as well.

Seeing the girl earnestly tilting her head up to look at the young man in the long robe, the group of newspapermen couldn't help imagining a bit of a novelistic plot.

Just as Luo Mingxuan was about to ask what was going on, Song Youling stood up and came over, cutting off everyone's wandering thoughts. "Brother Ji, I was just about to mention this to you, my sister is very passionate about tailoring. If you don't mind taking on a female student, would you consider taking her as an apprentice?"

Ji Qingzhou hadn't expected that he'd actually support his sister learning tailoring, and felt even more at a loss.

Seeing this, Yuan Shaohuai chimed in for the fun of it, "Oh, so that's why Brother Song was so generous with his gift today, turns out you had a favor to ask!"

"Don't listen to him stirring up trouble, Brother Ji. That God of Wealth statue was purely a gift from me to celebrate your shop opening, it has nothing to do with my sister's matter. You don't need to overthink it. If you don't want to take her as a student, just let her be a helper. After working for a while, she might well find it tiring and not want to continue in this line of work."

"That's actually got a point," Qiu Wenxin said, shuffling his cards, in a tone as if he'd been through a lot. "No matter how much you love something, once it becomes your job, all the fun goes out of it."

"Alright, alright, just play your cards. I'll go have a chat with her."

Ji Qingzhou had no patience to listen to the men's idle chatter any further, and led Song Yu'er to the front hall, asking directly, "Where do you live? If you came to work at my shop, would commuting be convenient?"

Hearing this, Song Yu'er knew the matter was mostly settled, and hurriedly replied, "I live on Avenue Édouard VII, not far from here."

Ji Qingzhou nodded, and after a few seconds of thought, said clearly, "Here's the thing. I've never taken on a student before, so I can't give you an answer about taking you on as an apprentice right now. But you could use this stretch of your break to come work and learn at my shop for a month, what's commonly called working for free."

"Let me say this upfront. I have a lot of work, and no spare patience to look after your feelings. If you're sure you want to come work, be prepared for a mountain of chores and heavy labor the moment you open your eyes each day. Of course, I won't work you to the bone either, you just need to arrive before ten in the morning, and I'll have you off promptly at five in the evening. Lunch and coffee will be on me. If you want time off, let me know in advance, but you can't just not show up without a word, that would worry people.

"Once the month is up, if you still want to pursue this line of work, I'll consider whether to take you on as a student, based on how you've performed."

Though she hadn't managed to become his student outright, for Song Yu'er, being able to come work here was already achieving her current-stage goal.

And besides, she knew that Mr. Ji's words had clearly been thought through carefully.

Since he'd given them time to get to know each other, if she truly performed well down the line, he presumably wouldn't go back on his word.

So she agreed in a clear, bright voice, "Alright, then it's settled. Starting tomorrow, I'll come work for you."

Ji Qingzhou shook his head slightly. "The day after tomorrow. Go back and think it over for one more day. Also, you must explain this matter to your parents, and get their consent."

"No problem!" Song Yu'er nodded vigorously in response.

Then, filled with excitement, she headed toward the parlor, ready to share the good news with her brother.

The moment she stepped through the door, though, she ran into a tall figure, startling her into a full-body shiver.

Turning to look properly, she realized the one standing behind the door was that blindfolded gentleman, with the taciturn servant beside him as always.

She hesitated, unsure whether she should say hello.

The key issue was that she didn't even know the man's name or status, he'd never introduced himself from the start.

In the front hall, Ji Qingzhou adjusted the position of the God of Wealth statue slightly, then turned to see Song Yu'er still standing by the parlor door, and walked over.

Just as he was about to ask what was wrong, his gaze shifted and he spotted Jie Yu'an standing quietly behind the door. He had no idea when the man had come over, or how long he'd been standing there.

Considering that Song Yu'er might be coming around often from now on, and would inevitably run into the house's owner, he gestured toward Jie Yu'an and said to the girl, "Let me introduce you. My cousin, Jie Yu'an. He's also the owner of this house."

"Mr. Jie, hello." Song Yu'er greeted him a little stiffly. For some reason, even though he clearly couldn't see, in his presence she still felt as though she were being watched and scrutinized.

Jie Yu'an gave a perfunctory nod, his expressionless face carrying a strong sense of detachment.

Seeing this, Ji Qingzhou gestured for Song Yu'er to go sit back on the sofa, then turned to Jie Yu'an and asked, "What are you doing lurking here so sneakily? Eavesdropping?"

Jie Yu'an paused, not expecting the word "sneaky" would ever be used on him, and said sullenly, "Going to the washroom. How was I to know you'd be blocking the doorway."

"Then go." Ji Qingzhou said. "It's right there, isn't it? Do you need me to help you pee too?"

"...Watch your words."

"That's all you ever say, isn't it?" Ji Qingzhou leaned sideways against the doorframe. "Watch this, watch that, several times a day."

"And who is it that speaks without any filter all day long?" Jie Yu'an retorted, unbothered.

Hearing Ji Qingzhou merely huff out a laugh without arguing back, he changed the subject, his tone dropping slightly as he asked, "You're going to take that girl as your student?"

Ji Qingzhou narrowed his eyes at him for a few seconds, then said in a lazy tone, "Not necessarily. Depends on her aptitude."

Though Jie Yu'an had already caught most of their conversation from behind the door, and knew the two of them were, at most, in an ordinary teacher-student relationship, he inexplicably felt a stirring unease in his heart.

He'd meant to needle him with "a lone man and woman alone together in a room, aren't you afraid of gossip," but felt that saying so would only get him labeled pedantic and old-fashioned again, so he let it go.

"Are you going to the washroom or not?" Seeing him just standing there without moving, Ji Qingzhou felt the urge to pee on his behalf.

"Mm." Jie Yu'an responded flatly, expression unchanged, extending a hand toward him. "Take me there."

Ji Qingzhou glanced down at the hand held out to him—palm turned sideways, thumb and fingers open—clearly a gesture meant for hand-holding.

"How old are you? Do you need to hold hands for just a dozen or so steps?"

Ji Qingzhou said this with a hint of a smile, reaching out to loosely grasp a few of his fingers, then turned and led him toward the washroom at the back of the front hall.

"Don't be coy."

Jie Yu'an seemed unsatisfied with this half-hearted touch, and as he kept pace beside him, he slipped his hand free and, as if trying to absorb the warmth of the other's skin, slowly tightened his grip around it.

"Using reduplicated words counts as being coy? Then I also call you Jie Yuanyuan, and call you Bao-gege, why don't you say anything about that?"

By the time they'd exchanged these few words, they'd already reached the washroom door. Ji Qingzhou opened it and said, "Here we are. The toilet's on the right. Go on in."

"......" Jie Yu'an had been teased by him so often that he was numb to these nicknames now, not even bothering to call it "childish," and simply ignored him and walked into the washroom, closing the door with a crisp click.

·

The gathering wrapped up around four in the afternoon. Shi Xuanman and his companion left an hour early, while the card players dawdled, dragging things out until they had no choice but to scatter and head back to work.

The newspapermen even ate their fill and packed up the leftover snacks and pastries on the table to take home, claiming it was for a late-night snack during overtime, not the least bit shy about it.

After the guests left, Ji Qingzhou and A'You cleaned up together, spending the better part of an hour tidying and cleaning, and moving all the tables and chairs back into place.

Entertaining guests didn't take much effort in itself; it was the cleaning up afterward that was more exhausting.

On the way home, the moment he sat in the car and shut the door, Ji Qingzhou leaned back into his seat and let out a long sigh.

A moment later, finding the seatback not quite comfortable, he glanced at Jie Yu'an sitting upright beside him and said, "Let me lean on your shoulder for a bit." Seeing no particular reaction from him, he went boneless and tilted himself, resting his head on the other's shoulder.

Listening to the steady breathing beside him, Jie Yu'an asked, voice pitched low, "That tired?"

"You don't do any of the work, of course you wouldn't think it's tiring," Ji Qingzhou said, voice soft and languid. "Footprints everywhere from people coming and going, had to mop the whole floor, and there was a pile of cups and plates to wash, and chairs to carry up and down the stairs. Good thing A'You helped, otherwise I'd have collapsed doing it all alone."

As if he'd been waiting precisely for these words, Jie Yu'an brought it up in an even tone, "So it sounds like this place needs to hire some help. That girl probably can't handle chores like these, can she?"

"Definitely need someone," Ji Qingzhou said, sighing just thinking about it, rambling on. "Never mind anything else. I'm always working upstairs, so downstairs definitely needs a tea attendant to receive guests. But this kind of person is hard to find. They'd need to know how to serve tea, clean up, and also have some gardening knowledge to tend the garden, and be trustworthy with their hands, and know at least some characters, at the very least, when guests come by, they'd need to jot down a name, and occasionally help me collect deposits or balances and such...

"Too bad the shop over on Love Lane also needs someone to watch over it, otherwise I'd have called Zhu Renqing over here... I'll put up a hiring notice tomorrow, I suppose."

Jie Yu'an responded as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, deliberately waiting a few seconds before speaking again, "A'You has a cousin who does odd jobs under Uncle Cheng, he can do a bit of everything. You could ask him if he'd be willing to come work here."

"A'You's cousin?" Ji Qingzhou raised an eyebrow. "What's his name? I might have chatted with him before."

He said the latter half of the sentence toward the driver's seat.

"My cousin's name is Hu Minfu," Huang Youshu replied. "You've definitely seen him. He's not very tall, dark-skinned and thin, usually does mowing and cleaning the lawn, and also helps Uncle Cheng tend the garden. Everyone calls him A'Fu."

"Oh, A'Fu..." Ji Qingzhou had an impression of him now—not long after he'd arrived, he'd chatted with someone of similar description, who'd been pruning roses at the time, and he'd assumed the man was the Jie family's gardener.

Ji Qingzhou was somewhat tempted by this suggestion.

Though hiring the relative of someone he already knew could occasionally cause minor inconveniences—say, if the person made some mistake, or carelessly offended a guest, it wouldn't be easy to simply dismiss them out of respect for the acquaintance.

Still, he didn't much care about closeness of relationships. If there was a real mistake, he'd dock pay as needed, and besides, he and A'You weren't close enough that he'd need to be especially mindful of the other's feelings.

More importantly, an odd-jobs worker would inevitably go in and out of the study and workroom while cleaning, and would unavoidably come into contact with his manuscripts. In that respect, hiring someone connected to people he knew would put his mind more at ease than hiring a total stranger.

And besides, this person had been recommended by Jie Yu'an. Shen Nanqi had once said that although Jie Yuanyuan couldn't see, his heart was exceptionally clear and discerning, and Ji Qingzhou figured his judgment of people was probably sound.

With this in mind, Ji Qingzhou asked Huang Youshu, "What's your cousin's current salary?"

"I'm not too sure about that." Though Huang Youshu and his cousin were relatives, he himself had been selected and trained from childhood to be the second young master's personal attendant, and his salary was on the higher end among the servants.

By comparison, his cousin doing odd jobs surely earned an ordinary wage. When chatting with Hu Minfu normally, he'd deliberately avoided the topic, so now he could only estimate roughly, "Probably a bit over twenty yuan."

Ji Qingzhou made a sound of acknowledgment, and was about to ask Jie Yu'an if he knew anything about this, but just as he raised his head, the other turned his head with no warning at all.

In that instant, their noses nearly brushed, their hair tangled together, and their lips very nearly grazed.

Ji Qingzhou, faced with that stern, handsome face so close at hand, found his breath catching, and reflexively pulled back into his own seat.

"Twenty-four. That's the standard monthly wage for outside odd-jobs staff."

Jie Yu'an added this first, then, noticing him pulling away, asked, "What's wrong?"

Ji Qingzhou let out a soft breath, and said in a tone of after-the-fact alarm, half-complaining, "Why did you suddenly lean in like that? You scared me half to death, we almost kissed."

Jie Yu'an froze slightly at this, and whatever he imagined in his head, the tips of his ears turned bright red in an instant. He turned his head back as if nothing had happened and said, "Then keep your distance from me."

"I'm already plenty far away. Anyone can tell from your personality that you've never dated anyone, you've probably still got your first kiss and everything. I don't want to be held responsible for that."

Up front, Huang Youshu, who was driving, nearly jerked the wheel the wrong way at hearing this.

"...I have no such need." Jie Yu'an retorted, without much bite to it, pressing his lips together, clearly not in a good mood.

Ji Qingzhou didn't pay this much mind, and after calming down for a moment, picked the earlier topic back up. "You said twenty-four yuan, right? That's a wage I can afford. I'll ask A'Fu when I get back whether he's willing to come work here. Though if I go poaching from your household like this, will your family be upset?"

"One less of him won't matter." Jie Yu'an replied, not without coldness.

"Good, then." Ji Qingzhou said this offhandedly.

Then, after observing him for a few moments, he asked, somewhat belatedly, "Why the long face again? Upset that your little secret got called out?"

Better if he hadn't brought it up. Now that he had, Jie Yu'an's mind went right back to that earlier remark about "not wanting to be responsible," and his mood soured even further.

Even though this marriage was merely a partnership, with no real feelings between them, marriage itself was a solemn contract—now that they were married, how could he say something so irresponsible without a shred of concern?

Jie Yu'an brooded over this privately, growing more displeased the more he thought about it, his expression turning stony as a statue, his face cold and his mouth shut.

"Don't get mad, keeping yourself untouched is a good quality, I'm complimenting you," Ji Qingzhou, still assuming he was embarrassed about his secret being exposed, tried to reassure him. "Besides, it's just the three of us here. A'You already knows what you're like, no need to be self-conscious about it."

"Shut up."

"Fine, fine, I'll stop talking, what a temper." Ji Qingzhou shook his head helplessly, and turned to look at the scenery out the car window.

Jie Yu'an also turned his head away, toward the window, his tangled thoughts a knotted mess he couldn't sort through.

Previous | TOC | Next